the rule book
/The last act of a dying organization is to get out a new rule and enlarged edition of the rule book.
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
One Creative Thing Every Day
/A study found participants who engaged in creative pursuits one day significantly boosted their mood for the following day. Overall, they reported feeling more energetic, enthusiastic, and excited.
These findings might not seem too surprising, but here’s the kicker: it didn’t take much creative activity for participants to reap the benefits. Just one, small creative activity a day helped. And you don’t have to be a skilled artist either. Something as simple as mindless doodling, making a joke, or even daydreaming will do.
Patrick Allan writing for LifeHacker
one's attitude
/The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.
- Victor Frankle
Just because
/Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. -Thomas Edison
those who love you
/It isn’t that those who love you IGNORE your inadequacies. Instead, they will pitch in and cheer you along.. and allow you the opportunity to grow and chances to fail.
this thing I must do
/Instead of asking, "How do I get out of this thing I must do?" ask, "How do I become fully present in it?"
Fixed Intelligence
/We’ve long assumed that positive feedback always has desirable results. But some recent research has painted a more complex picture. Melissa Kamins discovered that children who receive primarily person-praise (“how smart you are”) rather than good words about their efforts will usually develop fixed views of intelligence. When children are young and family members consistently tell them how brilliant they are (or how dumb), they get the message: life depends on your level of intelligence, not on how you work at something. You’ve got it or you don’t. Nothing can change that reality, they think. In short, fixed views of intelligence or growth mindsets stem from conditioning, not from some inborn character trait. They too can change.
Ken Bain, What The Best College Students Do
Hit me the ball!
/Instead of wishing the ball would be hit to someone else, yearn for the ball to be hit your way. -Stephen Goforth
Social Media is no Panacea for Loneliness
/A new study finds that spending more time on social media platforms is actually linked to a higher likelihood of feeling socially isolated. Although it's possible that increased social media use could help alleviate feelings of social isolation, increased social media use could also have the opposite effect in young adults, by limiting in-person interactions, the researchers wrote in the study. In addition, social media can give people the impression that others are leading happier lives, because people sometimes portray themselves unrealistically online, the researchers wrote.
"It's possible that young adults who initially felt socially isolated turned to social media. Or, it could be that their increased use of social media somehow led to feeling isolated from the real world. It could also be a combination of both," said senior study author Dr. Elizabeth Miller. "But even if the social isolation came first, it did not seem to be alleviated by spending time online, even in purportedly social situations.”
Sara G. Miller, Live Science
articles of interest - March 20
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media is no Panacea for Loneliness LiveScience
Facebook Is Trying Too Hard Techpinions
***TECHNOLOGY
Head in the cloud: Microsoft Transforms its Culture The Economist
Facebook's secret team is working on hardware that can scan your brain and read your mind Tech Republic
Google Maps will soon be able to find your parked car Mashable
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
The skills set needed when switching careers from Java to Big Data Hadoop 360
Hadoop: “It’s free like a puppy, not free like a beer” Datanami
A basic overview of machine learning for the novice The Monkey Learn Blog
The Hadoop dream has all but failed in a smoking heap of cost and complexity Datanami
***GRAMMAR
A court’s decision in a Maine labor dispute hinged on the absence of an Oxford comma Quartz
***WRITING& READING
Literature by Degree: Teaching Creative Writing New York Times
***LANGUAGE
It Begins: Bots Are Learning to Chat in Their Own Language Wired
When Language Can Cure What Ails You Daily Jstor
***GENDER
Women's International Film Festival at Liberty Station March 24-26 SD News
'BBC dad' parody imagines how a mom would handle the situation Mashable
Only 4.2% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women Quartz
Despite gains, women remain underrepresented among U.S. political and business leaders Pew Research
***RACIAL ISSUES
New Interactive Map Visualizes the Chilling History of Lynching in the U.S. (1835-1964) Open Culture
***FREE SPEECH
Talking Past Each Other on Free Speech (sub. req.’ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LEGAL ISSUES
Google thaws (a little) on defamation cases Search Engine Land
Supreme Court of Georgia Issues iHeart Radio Ruling Coosa Valley News
California Today: A Journalism Scandal Roils the Central Coast New York Times
***MUSIC
Why The Music Industry Is Finally Taking Podcasts Seriously Forbes
A Crash Course in Contemporary Christian Music OC Weekly
U2 On 'The Joshua Tree,' A Lasting Ode To A Divided America NPR
***JOURNALISM
Researchers Examine Breitbart's Influence On Election Information NPR
UT-owned Del Mar Times has a typo-filled job post San Diego Reader
Drones in Visual Journalism New York Times
WATCH: Journalism used to fight for the working man, now it’s a bastion of “trust fund kids” Salon
Ten insights, three actions toward community-driven storymaking AIR
Why Journalism, Education Could Benefit From a Mixed-Methods Approach Media Shift
***FAKE NEWS
Why Piling On Facts May Not Help In The Battle Against Fake News NPR
Watch Celebs Try (and Fail) to Tell Fake News From Real News Wired
Video: Top 5 ways to get trustworthy news Tech Republic
***ADVERTISING
Brands Are Digging Into GIF Data to Understand Consumer Behavior Ad Week
Guardian Pulls Ads from Google After They Were Placed Next to Extremist The Guardian
The fine line between sponsored content and advertising Talking New Media
***STUDENT MEDIA
The role of a college newspaper on campus The Vantage (student newspaper at Newman University is a private Catholic college)
Administration refuses to provide public documents The Nichollsworth (student newspaper for Nicholls State University)
Which College Degrees Produce the Most (and Least) Financially Responsible Students? Priceonomics
Private California university requests takedown of student news article Student Press Law Center
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
U of California strengthens faculty policies against sexual harassment and assault Inside Higher Ed
Suit Alleges Ohio U sat on Complaints of Professor’s Sexual Misconduct for a Decade Inside Higher Ed
***HEALTH
An Alarming Number of Kids Are Getting Their Hands on Opioids Gizmodo
***PSYCHOLOGY
***SOCIOLOGY
What if Sociologists Had as Much Influence as Economists? New York Times
***PHILOSOPHY
An Animated Introduction to Arthur Schopenhauer Open Culture
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Feel like you’re not the person you used to be? You’re probably right Becoming (my site)
***RELIGION
Fast-Growing, Entrepreneurial Christianity Is About A Lot More Than Church Attendance Fast Company
Conservatives Question choice of churches by Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee CNN
The Rise Of Secularism And The Alt-Right NPR
MormonLeaks website squares off with Mormon Church, posts leaked ‘Enemies List’ Washington Post
Twila Paris Defends Brother Indicted for Bribery at Christian College Christianity Today
***HIGHER ED
Sharp growth of California's free community college programs Inside Higher Ed
Trump Seeks Deep Cuts in Education and Science Inside Higher Ed
Investigation found that staff members improperly handled financial aid funds and changed student grades Inside Higher Ed
This little circle in SoCal became the intellectual hub of Trumpism Chronicle of Higher Ed
***TEACHING
Communication professor establishes ground rules for political conversations with his students in class Inside Higher Ed
Can a Failing Grade Motivate a Student? Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
How Millennials Lose And Win Under The GOP Health Bill NPR
Out Of Bounds: Competitive Video Gaming And Scholarships NPR
A wider partisan and ideological gap between younger, older generations Pew Research
The disturbing trend of homeless community college students Washington Post
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Don’t allow yourself to be treated as a checked box on someone else’s to-do list Chronicle of Higher Ed
Impact of Social Sciences – Google Scholar is a serious alternative to Web of Science London School of Economics and Political Science
How can we tackle the thorny problem of fraudulent research? The Guardian
Predatory publishers and events The Research Whisperer
Honest mistakes by young scientists shouldn't doom their careers Stat News
Bad incentives push universities to protect rogue scientists Slate
I'm not who I used to Be
/Feel like you’re not the person you used to be? You’re probably right. The longest-running personality study ever conducted reveals that people change so dramatically as the years go by that they often bear little resemblance to their younger selves.
In 1950, researchers asked teachers to assess specific personality traits of 1,208 14-year-old students, including their self-confidence, originality, perseverance, conscientiousness, stability of moods, and desire to excel. In 2012, 174 of the original students agreed to participate in a second evaluation. Now in their 70s, they completed cognitive tests and answered detailed questionnaires, rating themselves on the same characteristics. They also had a close friend or relative evaluate their personality.
After comparing the results, the researchers found no correlation between the participants’ current personality and who they were as teenagers, HuffingtonPost.com reports. “Personality changes only gradually throughout life, but by older age it may be quite different from personality in childhood,” the authors say, noting that genetic and environmental factors likely influence how personalities evolve over time.
You have to be bored
/You have to be bored. If you're not bored, your mind is never gonna wander, and if your mind never wanders, you're never gonna get lost in thought, and you're never gonna find yourself thinking things you wouldn't have otherwise thought. - Dan Deacon speaking to NPR
May you live
/May you live all the days of your life. - Jonathan Swift
pick a side
/"There’s nothing I can do." (Let’s look at our alternatives.)
"That’s just the way I am." (I can choose a different approach)
"He makes me so mad." (I control my own feelings)
"They won’t allow that." (I can create an effective presentation)
"I have to do that." (I will choose an appropriate response)
"I can’t." (I choose)
"I must." (I prefer)
"If only." (I will)
A serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support the belief. They feel out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces--other people, circumstances, even the stars--for their own situation.
Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
a mental short-cut that can lead us away from truth
/Imagine I tell you that a group of 30 engineers and 70 lawyers have applied for a job. I show you a single application that reveals a person who is great at math and bad with people, a person who loves Star Wars and hates public speaking, and then I ask whether it is more likely that this person is an engineer or a lawyer. What is your initial, gut reaction? What seems like the right answer?
Statistically speaking, it is more likely the applicant is a lawyer. But if you are like most people in their research, you ignored the odds when checking your gut. You tossed the numbers out the window. So what if there is a 70 percent chance this person is a lawyer? That doesn’t feel like the right answer.
That’s what a heuristic is, a simple rule that in the currency of mental processes trades accuracy for speed. A heuristic can lead to a bias, and your biases, though often correct and harmless, can be dangerous when in error, resulting in a wide variety of bad outcomes from foggy morning car crashes to unconscious prejudices in job interviews.
David McRaney writing in BoingBoing
wealth
/A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. Henry David Thoreau
Getting closer to the truth
/Most of us view the world as more benign than it really is, our own attributes as more favorable than they truly are, and the goals we adopt as more achievable than they are likely to be. We also tend to exaggerate our ability to forecast the future, which fosters optimistic overconfidence. In terms of its consequences for decisions, the optimistic bias may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases. Because optimistic bias can be both a blessing and a risk, you should be both happy and wary if you are temperamentally optimistic.
Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person -- you already feel fortunate.
An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything. If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer.
Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality.
Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders -- not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge. Their self-confidence is reinforced by the admiration of others. This reasoning leads to a hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
thinking of sex
/A man (really in love) really hasn’t leisure to think of sex. He is too busy thinking of a person. The fact that she is a woman is far less important than the fact that she is herself. – CS Lewis
wobbly furniture
/Craving emotional stability? Then start by fixing your shaky chair. A Canadian study found a connection between sitting in a wobbly chair and assumptions about judging relationships.
University of Waterloo Researchers divided volunteers into two groups. The group sitting in shaky furniture not only saw instability in the relationships of others but also said that they valued stability in their own relationships more highly. The researchers’ conclusion: Even a small amount of environmental wobbliness will encourage a desire for emotional balance and security.
Details of the study were published in the journal Psychological Science.
Stephen Goforth
articles of interest - March 13
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens New York Times
Fake news scammers use his picture of Facebook so he took Facebook to court Back Channel
Google is Slackifying Hangouts Mashable
Culling Your Social Media Past Chronicle of Higher Ed
Facebook, Instagram ban tools police use to spy on you Daily Dot
Skepticism over Snapchat Stock (sub. req.’ed) The Week
***TECHNOLOGY
Quantum technology is beginning to come into its own Economist
Hackers and governments can see you through your phone’s camera — here’s how to protect yourself Business Insider
Conformity, nostalgia and 5G at the Mobile World Congress Economist
The strangeness of the quantum realm opens up exciting new technological possibilities Economist
***JOURNALISM
What News-Writing Bots Mean for the Future of Journalism Wired
Time for Journalists to Encrypt Everything Wired
Russia’s RT Network: Is It More BBC or K.G.B.? NY Times
A journalism student's response to Trump's attack on media USA Today
***FAKE NEWS
Facebook combats fake news with new warning label Chicago Tribune
Facebook Enlists Fact-Checkers To Probe Disputed Stories NPR
Why Facebook and Twitter have a civic duty to protect us from fake news Wired
Chinese media confuse Trump satire with news CNN
Technology sites begin paying attention to role being play by Google and Facebook in ‘fake news’ controversy Talking New Media
In A Crucial Election Year, Worries Grow In Germany About Fake News NPR
5 fake stories that just won't go away CNN
Lessons From the Fake News Pandemic of 1942 Politico
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
Alphabet's Eric Schmidt: 'Big data is so powerful, nation states will fight' over it: “I'll bet my career” Business Insider
Employing a Naive Bayes classifier to create a model to classify an article as fake or real Open Data Science
Amazon machine learning to predict marketing campaign response Gigaom
NY Times profiles Trump campaign Big Data co; experts say claims are “exaggerated” New York Times
Creating service level agreements for big data from IT Technology Republic
***PERSONAL GROWTH
When children ask why Becoming (my site)
***LANGUAGE
Why words die: How to keep lexical treasures from keeling over Economist
Google’s Gboard will now translate text into another language as you type The Verge
***LITERATURE
Jane Austen poisoned by arsenic? Not so fast, experts say CNN
Alt-Right Jane Austen: The alt-right wants to co-opt her as a symbol of meek, old-fashioned white womanhood. They don't have a clue Chronicle of Higher Ed
Free Download: The Book Lover’s Guide to Coffee Open Culture
***FREE SPEECH
Colleges are ground zero for mob attacks on free speech, lawyer says Washington Post
***GENDER
The Gender Gap in Publications Inside Higher Ed
Cleveland bookstore flips around 1000s of titles written by men ABC News
Science remains male-dominated But a new report says females are catching up Economist
***RACIAL ISSUES
Study: Blacks more likely to be wrongfully convicted CNN
In Georgia, reaction to KKK banner is a sign of the times Washington Post
***RELIGION
20/20 on Gay Conversion Therapy ABC News
White Evangelicals Believe They Face More Discrimination Than Muslims The Atlantic
Could Southern Baptist Russell Moore lose his job? Churches threaten to pull funds after months of Trump controversy Washington Post
***ART & DESIGN
Knowing Your Type: Lessons from a typography expert Explore
***MUSIC
The Neural Systems of People Who Don't Enjoy Music The Atlantic
Italian Band Soviet Soviet Denied Entry To The U.S., Jailed And Then Deported NPR
All of the Music from Martin Scorsese’s Movies: Listen to a 326-Track, 20-Hour Playlist Open Culture
***FILM
Mesmerizing Map Renames LA Streets After Your Favorite Films Wired
***RESEARCH
Using Text Analysis to Discover Work in JSTOR Chronicle of Higher Ed
Research funds are wasted on reformatting manuscripts Nature
Can a film count as research, and if so, can a journal publish it? Times Higher Education
Remedy for Reproducibility: Opening a Dialog to Explore the Complexities Society for Laboratory Automation
***SCIENCE
Inside the Anti-Science forces of the Internet BuzzFeed
A big step towards an artificial yeast genome: Success would usher in true genetic engineering Economist
***HEALTH
Alexa Now Offers Medical Advice, Because Your Hypochondria Wasn't Bad Enough Gizmodo
‘Stunning’ gap: Canadians with cystic fibrosis outlive Americans by a decade Stat News
The rise of the medical selfie Economist
***PSYCHOLOGY
Your Personality Completely Transforms As You Age Huffington Post
Review of book about the man who invented the Rorschach test The Week
GOP plans to strip addiction mental health coverage for millions Forbes
The Secret History of Emotions Chronicle of Higher Ed
As opioid overdoses rise, police officers become counselors, doctors and social workers Washington Post
The Psychology of the Sample Sale Racked
***NEUROSCIENCE
Neuroscience Study Finds Ads on Pandora Outperform TV and Radio Spots Ad Week
***SOCIOLOGY
The Hidden Systems at Work Behind Gentrification Motherboard
***PHILOSOPHY
A Case For Majoring In Philosophy Forbes
Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation?: An Introduction to the Mind-Boggling “Simulation Argument” Open Culture
***HIGHER ED
177 Private Colleges Fail Education Dept.’s Financial-Responsibility Test Chronicle of Higher Ed
The Most Cringeworthy Monuments to Colleges’ Innovation Jargon Chronicle of Higher Ed
Republican State Lawmakers Seek to Ban ‘Sanctuary’ Campuses (sub. req.'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Four in 10 colleges are seeing drops in applications from international students Inside Higher Ed
Intellectual intolerance poses an existential danger to the university (sub. req.'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
How Colleges Can Open Powerful Educational Experiences to Everyone (sub. req.'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Scandal’s Constant Drip Means a Relentless Spotlight at Baptist School Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT MEDIA
Holy Cross Student Newspaper Considers Name Change After KKK Confusion WBZ-TV
Kentucky's attorney general said he'd intervene in two lawsuits, against student newspapers over open-records cases involving sexual assaults Lexington Herald Leader
Student journalists deserve more protection (opinion) NJ.com
***STUDENT LIFE
College professor says: Let your kids choose their own major Washington Post
Carleton University comes under heavy criticism after gym scale removed CBC
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Campus Rape Victims Are Waiting Years For Title IX Complaints To Be Resolved BuzzFeed
Judge: Federal Lawsuit Against Baylor University Can Proceed Associated Press
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Northwestern U. Is Accused of Violating Academic Freedom Chronicle of Higher Ed
Digital sociologist and social-media consultant picks Five books everyone should read to understand technology and social media Chronicle of Higher Ed